Manufacturing Technology Consumption Up 22% through February

MCLEAN, VA - February U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $163.96 million, according to the Association For Manufacturing Technology (AMT) and the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association (AMTDA). This total, as reported by companies participating in the United States Manufacturing Technology Consumption (USMTC) program, was up 28.8% from January and up 22.1% from the total of $134.34 million reported for February 2009. With a year-to-date total of $291.27 million, 2010 is up 22.3% compared with 2009.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals of actual data reported by companies participating in the USMTC program. “Manufacturing technology orders start off 2010 up 22% through February, showing that the market has turned and is slowly recovering from the worst single year downturn in our industry’s history,” says Douglas K. Woods, AMT president. “That increase could be twice as large if banks would ease credit restrictions. Our banks have a tenth of our GDP and nearly 24 times the required reserve in the Federal Depository when that money should be working to rebuild America.”

The USMTC report, jointly compiled by the two trade associations representing the production and distribution of manufacturing technology, provides regional and national U.S. consumption data of domestic and imported machine tools and related equipment. Analysis of manufacturing technology consumption provides a reliable leading economic indicator as manufacturing industries invest in capital metalworking equipment to increase capacity and improve productivity.

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